Resilience will win Premier League title race – Ferguson

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MANCHESTER UNITED manager Alex Ferguson predicts a long, hard English Premier League title race with champions Manchester City after his team opened up a sevenpoint gap over rivals Chelsea.

Table-toppers United ground out a 1-0 victory over West Ham at Old Trafford thanks to Robin van Persie scoring the fastest goal of the Premier League season to date, after only 33 seconds.

It was only the third clean sheet United have kept in domestic football this season and ended a worry- ing trend of the team having conceded first in nine of their opening 13 league games.

And while it was a far from vintage performance, it was a vital one, given that City’s 2-0 victory at Wigan on the same day kept the defending champions just one point behind.

‘‘The three points means we’re still ahead in the league and, with Chelsea drawing, it draws us away from them a little bit further,’’ said veteran United manager Ferguson.

‘‘But City are on our tails. It’s going to be a long season.

‘‘The importance of winning 1-0 in certain games is your opponents know the resilience is there.

‘‘If you look at some of the really important one-nils we’ve had, go back to beating Newcastle when they were nine points clear of us (in 1996).

‘‘Our 1-0 that night won us the league. There are important 1-0 victories. We’ve had many of them.’’

Given the scarcity of clean sheets for United this term, the fact his side were able to keep West Ham at bay for such a long period gave Ferguson as much pleasure as the large points cushion he enjoys over European champions Chelsea and their Benitez.

Benitez’s men were held by Fulham at Stamford Bridge yesterday, Mark Schwarzer’s clean sheet coming four days after Chelsea’s draw with champions Manchester City.

Some might believe the title contest is turning into a two-team race centred on Manchester, given the recent upheaval at Stamford Bridge.

But City manager Roberto Mancini is not one of them.

‘‘I think Chelsea can compete. We are at the top at the moment, we are OK,’’ he said.

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